


Sorry baby

by silentccries



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Brooke is a highly skilled assassin, F/F, Killing Eve AU, Lesbian AU, Vanessa is an MI6 agent, so basically:
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2020-11-23 23:06:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20897618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silentccries/pseuds/silentccries
Summary: "Growing up between colorful Puerto Rico and sunny Florida really made it difficult for her eyes to get used to the all-pervading greyness of the London streets, but she had never once regretted her decision of moving to the United Kingdom to work for MI6, given that it had been her dream job ever since she had first watched those 007 movies, and, despite being conscious of the sexist undertones of it all, had been enthralled by the beauty of all the girls special agent James Bond used to get."[The following work is only loosely based on Killing Eve. It does take inspiration from some of the show’s scenes, but it does not follow its plot closely, which means that you don’t need to be scared of spoilers and also that you can totally go ahead and read even if you haven’t watched the show]





	1. I.

The morning was cold and windy, the air electric with the promise of a storm. Snuggling in her black coat, Vanessa regretted not wearing an extra layer, although her last-minute decision of ditching the flashy red turtleneck sweater still seemed the wisest, considering she was supposed to be undercover.

She made her way over to the big grey building that loomed over the row of smaller, almost identical brick houses which had been methodically built along the street a couple centuries before and that always had Vanessa wondering how on earth their residents could even tell their own house apart from the others. 

Growing up between colorful Puerto Rico and sunny Florida really made it difficult for her eyes to get used to the all-pervading greyness of the London streets, but she had never once regretted her decision of moving to the United Kingdom to work for MI6, given that it had been her dream job ever since she had first watched those 007 movies, and, despite being conscious of the sexist undertones of it all, had been enthralled by the beauty of all the girls special agent James Bond used to get.

After discretely showing her badge to the sleepy doorman (who didn’t seem to care who entered the premises anyway), Vanessa stepped into the building through the imposing glass doors and quickly took a look around to assess the situation. The lobby seemed unexceptionally calm: a delivery guy was quietly waiting for someone to come down the stairs and sign their receipt while an older man sitting in a black leather armchair was softly snoring, his copy of _The Financial Times_ discarded on the armrest next to an empty cup of coffee.

Vanessa would’ve preferred taking her time to inspect the entire building, but her boss had been very clear: “You get in, take a peek at her, and get out immediately. Do not interact and, no matter what happens, do not intervene in any way,” the older woman had instructed adamantly, acutely aware of Vanessa’s risky tendency to do things on her own terms and rarely stick to pre-established plans. After all, Vanessa’s impulsive nature had been both a curse and a blessing in her line of work: many had doubted her ability to keep cool under pressure, which was an undeniably crucial part of her job as an undercover agent, but she had proved time and time again that she could switch off her turbulent way of experiencing emotions and her boisterous personality when needed; she had also proved that her proclivity for making seemingly hazardous decisions on the spur of the moment could often turn out to be very useful and successful while on a mission.

She walked over to the elevator, the doors opening with a “ding” shortly after she pressed the calling button. The air in the elevator cabin smelled faintly of detergent, which meant that someone from the cleaning service had recently got off with their trolley to go accomplish their morning tasks on whatever floor. 

Vanessa knew she was looking for a tall woman with a short blonde bob, although she had to also take into consideration the fact that her target was renowned for sporting various different hairstyles, sometimes opting for long flowy curls, bangs, and even bright red hair. 

Vanessa wasn’t too worried about not recognizing the suspect though, considering that she had been studying her face and body from every angle for months, obsessively looking at the pictures of her that were pinned all over the office, and even sneaking some of them in her purse to bring home overnight and to observe up close. She had grown dangerously familiar with the shape of the suspect’s long muscular legs, her strong biceps, her beautifully shaped lips, her blue-green eyes… And if Vanessa ever found herself looking online for porn actresses that had similar physical attributes on lonely nights… well, her colleagues didn’t need to know that. What she did in her spare time was none of their business anyway.

The investigation had been going on for months on end, but they were yet to find out the suspect’s real name or nationality, which is why they had only been referring to her by her code name: Villanelle. 

She was one of the deadliest female assassins of the last decade, and she operated with such precision and efficiency that it had been pretty much impossible for them to find hard evidence. She was highly skilled and she could apparently speak at least four languages fluently, but, as it turned out, she did have one weakness: she was cocky. 

Villanelle knew that she was being followed, and she liked it. She loved basking in all the attention and she played along, starting to purposefully leave traces behind for them to find. Just two weeks before, she had murdered a Russian diplomat in a bathroom stall inside Westminster; she had injected a carefully measured dose of deadly fluid into his neck, left his lifeless body gruesomely propped up against the toilet seat, and wrote a note on the mirror in scarlet lipstick: _See you soon_, it said.

Vanessa had managed to bring a picture of the note home and had spent days studying her handwriting, tracing it over with her index finger and wondering, for one inexplicable moment after she had maybe drank a bit too much wine, what her name would look like if Villanelle were to write it down. She had quickly snapped out of it, but the image of sinuous, bright red S’s remained engraved in her mind for days. 

Throughout her career, Vanessa had been on quite a few similar missions, following suspects around, studying them and their psyche, gauging every infinitesimal detail and trying to predict their future moves, but she had never found herself being so captivated by one of them. She was positively obsessed with Villanelle, and she was scared that her coworkers had started to catch up on that; Scarlet in particular had been sending some enquiring looks her way whenever she showed too much enthusiasm over a small detail or her eyes lingered a bit too long on the office’s picture board.

Truth be told, Scarlet’s appraisal was the last thing Vanessa was even interested in. She couldn’t care less whether Scarlet had a high or low opinion of her. But she was scared. Scared that if her so-far internal turmoil were to somehow gain other people’s attention, then she would have to truly admit to herself what her subconscious mind already knew to be true: that her obsession with Villanelle was unhealthy and definitely crossed the borders of professional interest.

With her mind going a hundred miles per hour, Vanessa stepped out of the elevator onto the first floor and tried to center herself before checking the entire hallway for clues. Nothing particular caught her eye, so she got back into the elevator and went on to repeat the same procedure on the next few floors.

On the fifth floor, she noticed the cleaning trolley on the side of the corridor. She walked up to it and inspected it: cleaning products, a broom, a duster, a bin full of waste… Just normal things you’d expect to find in a cleaning trolley. 

The noise of a door closing caused Vanessa to jump a little. She turned around just in time to see a blonde woman lock the door up and turn to walk in the opposite direction, towards the next door. Vanessa couldn’t see her face, but the sight of her blonde locks had been enough for her breath to catch in her throat immediately. She stood paralyzed for what felt like an hour before she could get her mind to think of something to do. She started walking towards the woman without ever taking her eyes off of the back of her head.

As she got closer and closer, she felt like a passenger in her own body. She wasn’t the driver anymore, she wasn’t in control — her legs were moving on their own accord, her hands had closed into tight fists without her permission, while her heart was pumping blood so fast it felt like a coronary was about to burst.

“I’m sorry, do you know what floor we are on?” she heard herself say before she could stop, her boss’s instructions long forgotten. 

But something was wrong. As the woman turned around, Vanessa realized that she didn’t look as tall as she did in the pictures, her uniform almost touching her knees; her hair was of a dirty blonde that didn’t quite match the platinum blonde Vanessa had secretly grown fond of; her eyebrows were way too thin and her eyes were most definitely not blue-green, but brown.

“We’re on the fifth, love. It’s written right there,” she replied in a thick Essex accent, and pointed at a small plaque which indicated that they were indeed on the fifth floor.

“Oh,” Vanessa said, “silly me. I’m so sorry, have a nice day!” she quickly apologized and turned around, sprinting for the elevator. She couldn’t quite justify, even to herself, the way that her stomach had dropped as soon as she realized the woman in front of her wasn’t Villanelle. There was no rational explanation for the enormous sense of disappointment she could feel burning inside of her chest either. And yet, there she was, running out of the elevator — her heart still beating incredibly fast, like it was about to escape her ribcage; her mind buzzing with a million thoughts, feeling like it was about to short-circuit.

As soon as the elevator doors opened, she made a beeline for the bathroom on the ground floor and splashed her face with cold water. She stared at herself in the mirror, her mind still racing. 

And the she heard it.

The door directly behind her opened, the noise of someone’s heeled shoes against the ground. And Vanessa knew, without knowing how she knew it, who the person behind her was.

She moved slightly to the right and saw her in the mirror. She was wearing a black blazer jacket with nothing underneath but a skimpy bralette, the dark fabric contrasting against the fair skin of her chest. She was sporting the short sleek bob that seemed to be her natural hair, tucked behind her ears. Her light eyes were fixed on Vanessa, staring at her with outrageous intensity.

Without skipping a beat, she walked closer to where Vanessa was standing. She raised her right arm and gently stroked her long brown hair with her elegant fingers. Vanessa couldn’t breathe or move, so she just stood there, perfectly still, staring at the blonde woman in the mirror as if she was in a trance.

“I love when you wear your hair down,” Villanelle said in a breathy voice. 

And then she left.

“It was nice, sure, but it wasn’t the best date I’ve ever been on in my life, you know what I mean?” Scarlet was saying in her dreadfully monotonous voice, checking her freshly painted nails while she spoke. 

To be fair towards Scarlet, though, her voice wasn’t too bad. The problem simply was that Vanessa found everyone’s voice to be terribly dull ever since she had heard Villanelle’s velvety tone. As a matter of fact, she had spent that entire day after their fatal bathroom meeting on edge, repeating those words in her head and being unable to concentrate on anything but the memory of the jolt of electricity that had ran through her entire body when Villanelle had touched her hair.

“Vanessa?”

“Yes, uhm… S-sure, I mean, had he been the one for you, you would’ve… known. You would’ve just… known, I guess.”

Scarlet didn’t seem particularly satisfied with her answer, but she decided to grace Vanessa by dropping the conversation altogether. She took a last swig of her Earl Grey tea with raised eyebrows before quietly returning to her desk.

Vanessa stood there in silence for a good minute, her brain a bit slow on the uptake. She eventually made her way back to her desk too, just in time to see her personal mobile phone getting a call from an unregistered number. She paid it no mind and turned the phone over, getting started on some long-overdue paperwork instead.

She was about to write the last few details on her investigation report when Nina, her boss, walked over to her desk.

“So, are there any updates on the Villanelle case? We’ve been really stagnant lately, haven't we? We need some progress, and soon. The higher-ups are breathing down my neck.”

“Not much Nina, I’m afraid,” started Vanessa, “but I do have good reason to believe that she’ll screw herself over soon. She keeps trying to show off, but that can’t last much longer. She’s going to slip up at some point.”

Nina listened intently to Vanessa, and if she was disappointed by her lack of a substantial answer, she didn't let it show too much. 

“I just got a call: we have another murder,” intervened Scarlet, “and this one’s inside the New Scotland Yard building. Police say they recognize the stylings of a highly skilled killer.”

“We need to act fast and with maximum care. The police already have agents closing off the perimeter, but that won’t help with keeping everything under wraps. People will soon start to notice something’s wrong. We need to take pictures and look for evidence, as quickly as possible. No cigarette, bathroom, or coffee breaks for anyone. We need to clean everything up before the press gets a whiff. This is the second murder to happen right under the government’s nose in just a month… Downing Street really won’t be happy if the news gets out,” Nina instructed, her brows furrowed.

Everyone got to work immediately, snapping pictures and moving carefully around so as not to contaminate the crime scene.

Vanessa knew Villanelle was the culprit, although there were no apparent traces of her this time: no signatures, no written messages. The victim was laying on the floor, arms folded over his chest with sinister composure; his clothes were intact and there were no traces of blood to be seen. From what Vanessa and her team had gathered, Villanelle didn’t like to spill blood: she liked her killings to be clean and concise, usually opting for just a small lethal injection in a strategic body part.

As the police had reported, the victim was a Japanese repentant mobster who had been collaborating with the police, basically snitching on all of his ex fellow criminals. No wonder he had ended up dead.

Vanessa assisted Scarlet in her search for evidence, passing her plastic evidence bags whenever she needed them and scrupulously labeling everything, but she knew in her heart of hearts that it was all fruitless effort. The possibilities of Villanelle involuntarily leaving traces behind were extremely scarce. And she had left no message, which, in its turn, left Vanessa feeling inexplicably disappointed and unmotivated to go on with the procedure.

Vanessa’s decision of walking home to relieve some stress had turned out to be a huge debacle. Not only had it started to rain five minutes into her walk, but she had also ran into her old neighbor, a forty-year-old woman who loved to go on unsolicited thirty-minute monologues about her two insufferable toddlers.

Vanessa had managed to fake interest for about three minutes, before she had to make up an excuse and take the long way around to her apartment so as not to have to walk in the same direction as her former neighbor.

As soon as she got home, she poured herself a glass of wine and actually contemplated taking up smoking again. She eventually decided against it and put on a stupid Netflix show instead.

She was about to get started on her dinner when her phone rang. It was an unregistered number again, and it looked similar to the one that had called earlier in the day. Vanessa answered.

“Hello? Who is this?”

There was no answer on the other end. Vanessa waited a couple of seconds and then hung up.

The phone rang again not even ten seconds later. Vanessa picked up again, and this time she did hear something.

Someone on the other side was breathing heavily, a rhythmic sound barely audible in the background. Just like it had happened in the bathroom, Vanessa knew instinctively who it was. And she also knew exactly what she was doing. So she listened closely.

She felt heat building up in her lower abdomen, but she didn’t dare move a single muscle. She just sat there and listened, her body feeling like it was about to auto-combust. The breathing on the other side was speeding up, little whimpers occasionally escaping the interlocutor’s mouth too.

After what could’ve realistically been four or five minutes, but felt like hours, Villanelle hung up the phone. Vanessa was left feeling empty and alone. And turned on.

She grunted and threw herself face first into the big burgundy cushion on her sofa, the prospect of actually getting up and cooking her dinner completely out of the question.

The days followed one another with extraordinary indolence. The hours seemed to stretch themselves just to torture Vanessa, every single minute of every waking hour filled with the haunting memory of Villanelle’s heavy breathing on the other side of the telephone. 

She couldn’t quite get out of her mind the fact that she, of all people, had made Villanelle feel that way: as much as she couldn’t make heads or tails of her unspeakable, completely unprofessional crush on a multiple murderer, what seemed to her the most unfathomable aspect of it all was the fact that Villanelle actually reciprocated.

There were so many unanswered questions and doubts continuously bouncing in between Vanessa’s occipital and frontal bone, and being left alone with all of those was intolerable, so Vanessa just poured all of her energies into the investigation — which, of course, didn’t end up helping her at all. Even doing something as simple as going through the paperwork was agony.

And if that wasn’t already enough, Vanessa knew perfectly well that Villanelle was the one behind the Scotland Yard murder but, as Scarlet and Nina both had frustratingly pointed out, they had no submittable evidence whatsoever: no fingerprints or footprints, no bodily fluids, no hairs. Nothing that could lead directly back to Villanelle.

“But I know, and you know that it was her!” Vanessa had exclaimed.

“Well, yes. But guesswork and assumptions aren’t enough, Vanessa,” Nina had reminded her with a sympathetic look in her eyes. “And although I must admit that you do have pretty good intuition, which is no doubt useful, we need objective proof. That’s just the way it is.”

Vanessa softly shook her head, aware of the fact that her boss was one hundred percent right. 

“Yeah,” she said compliantly, “I know. It’s just really frustrating, that’s all.”

Cleaning her apartment had proved itself to be an arduous task. No matter what part of her home she found herself in, her eyes kept trying to glance at her phone.

Vanessa wasn’t even sure of what she was hoping for specifically. Another call? Maybe another encounter even? Wouldn’t that just send her spiraling even further down? She was firmly convinced of the fact that if she were to ever meet Villanelle again, her brain would never be able to find peace again.

At night Vanessa tossed and turned in her bed for hours before exhaustion could force her to sleep. She ritually went through all of the despicable things Villanelle had done as if it were a slideshow, images of lifeless bodies flashing up in her mind’s eye, trying to suppress the absurd crush through rationality. How could she be attracted to someone capable of such appalling acts? She was utterly repulsed and scared by the idea of having feelings for a murderer, but, at the same time, she couldn’t deny that what Villanelle had made her feel with a barely there touch was more than she had ever felt before in life. 

She remembered one of those documentaries about people who suffered from drug addiction. Vanessa had never fully understood what they meant when they described the desperate need for substances, but now, she thought, she pretty much could relate.

She looked at her phone for the umpteenth time: a spirited debate took place in her mind, her opposing impulses slamming contrary arguments back and forth like in a tennis match. The fact was, there was no real discussion: she knew the idea was most definitely bad. Nevertheless, the only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it, bitch.

She took the phone in her hand, pressed the last number in her recent calls list, and shut her eyes tight while she listened to the dial tone. It kept going, and going, and going.

Resigned and disappointed, Vanessa threw her phone somewhere at the end of her bed. She sighed. 

The room felt like it was spinning and Vanessa decided she couldn’t stay home. She threw on a random blazer from her closet and found herself in Soho before she could even question it.

She entered a bar at random, trying to head straight for the counter. It was extremely crowded and reaching the bartender to order a drink was near impossible, and Vanessa was about to settle for just standing there in the midst of the crowd when an extremely pretty girl approached her.

“I’ve been trying to get a drink all fucking night,” she said with a soft smile, “it’s a lost battle.”

Her hair was light brown, her arms and legs long and elegant like those of a gazelle, her wrists dainty. She was staring at Vanessa with shining blue eyes, gentleness emanating from her every pore.

“Yes, that I noticed,” replied Vanessa.

“My name’s Grace, by the way,” added the brunette, extending her right hand.

“Vanessa.”

“That’s a pretty name.”

They shook hands. 

Grace’s skin was soft and warm to the touch. Everything about her radiated softness and warmth, actually, and Vanessa was mildly intrigued. She briefly wondered whether her thighs too would feel soft and warm under her touch, and rubbing against her own…

But then it was like all of the lights suddenly went off in her mind, the power cutting off without any warning, all of the fantasies dying down as quickly as they had arisen.

Vanessa’s breath was inexplicably short and she felt the immediate need to get out of the crammed bar to get some fresh air.

“I am so sorry,” she said to Grace, “I need to go.”

Once she managed to push her way out, Vanessa found a wall to rest against as she tried to breath in the night air. She had no idea what had just happened and, to be completely honest with herself, she had no desire whatsoever of analyzing it.

After a few minutes, she called a cab and went home. That night she didn’t sleep a wink.

“Oh, wow. You look like actual death.” 

“Thank you Scarlet. That’s very kind of you,” retorted Vanessa sarcastically.

“It’s honest. That’s for sure,” Nina cut in while walking towards the coffee station.

Vanessa tried to ignore her colleagues. She owned a mirror, she knew she looked terrible. There was no need to point it out like that, goddamnit.

She decided to concentrate on writing yet another report on Villanelle.

Those days the hours had a tendency of bleeding into one another. Everything proceeded with tremendous dullness, and, with nothing exciting on the horizon, Vanessa started to actually crave a move on Villanelle’s part: a call, a text message, a brief letter, a small note attached to a carrier pigeon, a smoke signal — anything at all.

But nothing came.

So Vanessa kept stumbling through her life’s responsibilities like a zombie, barely putting effort into her work and even less into her social life. Just that week, she turned down Scarlet’s offer of getting dinner together at least three times with dubious lies, which resulted in her colleague giving her the cold shoulder for a while. And yet, she couldn’t bring herself to care too much about it.

On Friday she took the underground home. The train was packed and a young passionate couple had the excellent idea of sitting right next to her, furiously making out the entire time and producing a cacophony of slurping sounds Vanessa didn’t even think humanly possible up until that moment.

When she finally managed to get home, already a nervous wreck, Vanessa found her apartment door ajar. 

She specifically remembered locking the door up that morning, and she was positive she hadn’t given anyone a spare key to her apartment. So she dialed 999 on her phone and proceeded carefully. She was already expecting the worst, but everything in her living room seemed exactly as it was when she had left earlier in the day. Nothing seemed to be missing.

She started to walk towards the kitchen, and then she heard a noise. She stopped dead in her tracks.

“What are you doing standing there? Come on, I’ve been waiting for you.”

Vanessa would’ve recognized that voice anywhere. After all, she had spent the previous two weeks obsessing over it. She knew exactly who had broken into her house and was currently doing something unidentified in her kitchen.

Vanessa didn’t know what to do. Her mind was blank except for an high-pitched alarm sound that kept repeating: “Villanelle’s in your house.”

She was unable to move. Her feet cemented to the ground.

Villanelle appeared on the threshold.

“You could offer me something to drink, for example. No?”

She was wearing a black mesh top with a red bra peeking underneath; perfectly tailored black pants cladded her long legs, looking especially tight around her muscular thighs. Her brain couldn’t quite process that information. So it didn’t.

She spoke without thinking at all:

“I have a bottle of champagne in the fridge, but I’ve been saving it for a special occasion,” she said.

“Well, wouldn’t you consider this a special occasion? I’m insulted, Vanessa.”

Hearing her name in Villanelle’s voice for the first time sent a jolt of electricity through Vanessa’s whole body. She still had no idea how she even knew who she was, how she got her number and, most importantly, how she had found out her address and managed to break into her apartment — but she was bizarrely uninterested in finding out.

She walked past Villanelle, acutely aware of her gaze following her every move, and opened the fridge.

She had lied: the bottle of champagne was simply a gift she had received from Nina for her birthday, and Vanessa was actually planning on downing it all alone on one particularly challenging evening. For some obscure reason, though, she wanted to impress Villanelle by pretending to be one of those adults that just have champagne bottles on standby at all times.

However, she quickly realized that there was a flaw in her plan.

“I have no champagne glasses,” she admitted.

“I guess those will do, then,” Villanelle said smiling and pointing at a couple of mugs on the dish rack. 

Vanessa poured the champagne into the two Ikea mugs. She was about to pass Villanelle the baby pink one, when, in one swift move, she snatched the phone from her hands and dipped it into the other mug.

“Can’t call for help now.”

Vanessa didn't dare move or speak.

“Are you scared?” Villanelle asked with a smirk.

“No,” Vanessa lied.

“Good.”

Vanessa looked for a clean glass in the cupboard, and poured the champagne again.

“I guess I’ll drink out of this, then,” she said, a challenging tone in her voice which was surprising even to her own ears.

Villanelle, in the meantime, had never taken her eyes off of her. She found her mug and took a sip without ever looking away.

“I saw you for the first time back in May,” confessed Villanelle, “that bar in Brixton. You were following me.”

“What gave me away?” asked Vanessa.

“You looked way too pretty to be in a place like that.”

Vanessa couldn’t feel her legs anymore, and she couldn’t blame that on the champagne considering she had only pretended to drink it.

“After that, I couldn’t get you out of my mind,” continued the blonde, “I was thinking about you constantly. So I had to think of ways I could get you to get closer to me. I started to leave those messages behind. I was… kinda desperate, if I’m being honest.”

Vanessa was stunned. She still didn’t know where Villanelle was going with it. Was this all just a big ploy to kill her? As much as she wanted to believe her words fully, she couldn’t be too sure of her true intentions.

She kept looking directly at Villanelle, but the intensity of the situation eventually forced her to avert her eyes. And that’s when she saw it. 

A kitchen knife she didn’t remember ever using was placed on the counter. Her blood ran cold. Villanelle noticed.

Vanessa knew she stood no chance against her: Villanelle moved quickly and with grace, like a feline, and before Vanessa could even cross half the distance, she had already picked the knife up. She then effortlessly pinned Vanessa against the fridge, keeping her there by pressing her lower body against hers and by holding both her wrists with one hand.

She looked her in the eyes and slowly pointed the blade at her throat.

“If my intention was to kill you, I would’ve done that as soon as you walked in, don’t you think?”

Vanessa gulped.

“I don’t want to harm you, baby,” Villanelle said, her voice dropping a couple octaves, “I want to make you feel real good.”

Vanessa felt something hot slither inside her lower abdomen. Her throat felt incredibly tight, her vision started to go blurry.

Villanelle lowered the knife and placed it back on the counter. She didn’t step back, though; her body still pressed against Vanessa’s.

Vanessa could feel her breath caressing her skin. Her left hand’s hold on her wrists softened lightly. She started to lean in.

She was getting closer and closer, so close Vanessa could count her eyelashes.

And then, all of a sudden, Villanelle stepped back.

A whimper escaped Vanessa’s mouth before she could control it.

Villanelle smiled. She was leaning against the opposite kitchen counter now. Vanessa was spellbound.

“Come and get it if you want it, baby.”

Vanessa walked over to her, and, without a second thought, pressed her lips against hers.

The kiss was unexpectedly soft, the two taking their time to get accustomed to the other’s lips. 

Villanelle eventually started to move and Vanessa followed her lead: she could feel her hands sliding from where they had landed on the sides of her face, down to her shoulders, her upper arms, her waist, her hips…

Vanessa completely lost control. She let Villanelle push her against the fridge once again, and she hooked her leg around her hip. She needed to feel as close to her as possible, whatever distance left between them unbearable.

They kept kissing desperately, clinging to one another, until Villanelle spun her around. She ran a hand through Vanessa’s hair, tugged at it and then pressed her face against the cold metal of the fridge door, all of the magnets sliding off.

Vanessa could feel Villanelle’s lips against her neck, her shoulders, her cladded back. And then she felt her hands tug at her trousers, sliding them off with one energetic pull.

She sneaked a look behind her shoulder for a second, just in time to see Villanelle kneel down. She felt her breath against her bare legs and she couldn’t help but moan a little.

“You sound so pretty. Please, don’t hold back.”

And with that, she slid her underwear down to her ankles too. Vanessa couldn’t see her, but even just the thought of Villanelle observing her completely nude lower half was enough to send her into overdrive.

She felt like she could go completely crazy if Villanelle didn’t do something soon. She was desperate for it, and tried to let the other know by wiggling her butt.

Villanelle chuckled softly, but then complied to her unspoken request. She spread her cheeks and gave a tentative lick. Vanessa whimpered. 

Villanelle chuckled again before actually going in full force. She didn’t stop until Vanessa was pretty much screaming, still pressed against the fridge.

Afterwards they finished their champagne sitting on the sofa together. Vanessa fell asleep while Villanelle stroked her hair slowly. When she woke up a couple of hours later, Villanelle was gone.

On the kitchen counter there was a small post-it note:

_Had to go. You look so pretty when you sleep, baby.  
See you soon,_

_Brooke_

“Vanessa? Are you there?”

Scarlet’s voice had reached Vanessa’s ears from what felt like a parallel dimension. She had to force her mind’s cogs to jumpstart the mechanism of her thoughts.

“Yes, sure, what’s up?” she managed to say.

“I asked you three times already.”

“Sorry, I… Sorry.”

“You’ve been acting weird lately.”

“Have I? I’m just… really tired, I guess.”

Scarlet looked at her, suspicion still in her eyes. 

“Okay,” she said, “if you say so. Anyway, Nina says you can leave early tomorrow if you hand over the report today.”

“Tomorrow?”

“You have that wedding reception, no? You said last week.”

“Oh, yeah, right… Thank you.”

Vanessa had completely forgotten about the wedding. She wasn’t particularly looking forward to spending the entire evening surrounded by strangers, but she had already RSVP’d and promised the bride, an old friend she had once nicknamed Silky, that she would’ve attended. Besides, she did have a dress in her closet that she had desperately wanted to wear for a while.

She pulled her laptop out of her bag and started to type a reminder to call the hairdresser when she received an email from Nina: she was asking for the report.

Vanessa’s stomach dropped. The report was ready to go, but its handoff meant that Vanessa had to finally face the dilemma which had been troubling her mind for the past few days: was she supposed to let her colleagues know that she had found out Villanelle’s real name? 

She had spent hours at home softly whispering to herself the name “Brooke,” letting the R slowly roll off of her lips while putting off the moment to really confront the problem she knew was forthcoming. If she were to share her discovery, how was she to justify it? Could she make something up to make it seem plausible?

She had to make a decision, and she had to make it now. There really wasn’t much she could confess without fully incriminating herself. So she didn’t.

She uploaded the attachment as it was and hit send before she could question it. The guilt hit her with the force of a double-decker bus, but she tried to ignore it.

She said goodbye to Scarlet and left the office. As she was sitting on the train, memories of Brooke’s fingers in her hair came flooding back. And then her hands on her hips, her thighs pressed against hers…

Vanessa found it impossible to conciliate the image of the woman who had her screaming against her fridge, her pants still around her ankles, and the monster who had murdered at least a dozen men in cold blood just in the past three months.

She felt a twinge of remorse in her chest. She spent the entire commute home trying to suppress it.

The wedding invitation said that the reception started at six, which is why Vanessa had found herself running out of her cab at six thirty, her heels making it impossible for her to run too fast. She hated being late but, in reality, she always was — one of the many things she had taken after her mother, besides her good looks.

She caught her own reflection in a big glass door and she couldn’t help but admit to herself that the extra time she had taken to get ready had indeed paid off. She felt beautiful in her green silk dress and whatever the hairdresser had done looked really good, her hair gathered in the back in a loose chignon, just a few soft curls left out of it to frame her face.

Feeling confident, she entered the hall. As her eyes focused on the scene, though, her confidence left her altogether. 

Sitting alone at a table was the woman who had been haunting her both in her daydreams and sleeping dreams. 

Vanessa’s eyes zeroed in on her. She was wearing a pink blazer and coordinated skirt, her hair styled with bangs and soft long curls this time. She looked undeniably beautiful, but what on earth was she doing at Silky’s wedding?

As if her thoughts had summoned her, Silky appeared in her field of view.

“Vanessa!” she exclaimed in her loud voice, “You’re here! I’m so excited!”

She hugged her incredibly tight. Too tight.

“You’re also drunk, aren’t you?” asked Vanessa chuckling quietly. Leave it to Silky to get hammered on the most important day of her life.

“Maybe so. Anyway, go to your table! There’s plenty to drink for everyone. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have approximately two hundred people I need to say hello to.”

Vanessa walked towards the table Brooke was sitting at.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Hello to you too, Vanessa.”

Vanessa cocked one eyebrow.

“Okay,” she lifted up her hands in surrender, “I saw the invitation the other night in your living room and I figured I’d surprise you here. So I crashed the party. Nobody cares about the guests at a wedding anyway, everyone’s eyes are on the bride,” Brooke explained.

“Except for mine, of course,” she continued, “I’ll only be looking at you in that dress.”

Vanessa could feel her cheeks heating up, but she tried really hard to keep the gloating at a minimum: she needed to control herself. 

Of course Brooke made it an extremely strenuous feat. She kept eyeing her up, even after the other guests came to join them at the table. To Vanessa’s pleading looks Brooke just answered with arrogant little smirks.

About an hour later, when everyone’s bellies had been filled with food and a considerable quantity of alcohol, Brooke moved her chair closer to Vanessa’s. She felt her hand landing on her thigh immediately, wasting no time.

Brooke pushed the fabric of her dress aside, the sensation of the silk brushing against her skin making Vanessa shiver. She didn’t dare look up from her plate, but she was one hundred percent certain Brooke was looking directly at her: she could feel her gaze burn a hole into the side of her skull.

The thick tablecloth was preventing Brooke’s misdoings from reaching the innocent eyes of the other oblivious dinner guests, but Vanessa still felt uneasy. She couldn’t do this at Silky’s wedding.

Before Brooke’s hand could reach her inner thigh, she moved her leg. She could detect Brooke’s mild disappointment, but she didn’t say anything. She did however push the very last bite of her cake slice towards the other’s plate, like a peace offering. Brooke smiled softly. As Vanessa had found out just a few minutes earlier, she loved cake.

Later in the night, the DJ had to take a break: he left his equipment at the station and some enlightened guest promptly pressed play on a Rihanna playlist — seeing white people drunkenly shake their asses off beat to _Work_ at a wedding reception wasn’t high up on the list of things Vanessa wanted to witness in her life, but it sure was entertaining.

Everyone seemed to be having a great time until _Love On The Brain_ came on shuffle. Everyone cleared off the dance floor to leave room for Silky and her man to slow dance.

> __
> 
> Oh, and baby I'm fist fighting with fire  
Just to get close to you  
Can we burn something, babe?  
And I run for miles just to get a taste  
Must be love on the brain  
That's got me feeling this way  
It beats me black and blue but it fucks me so good  
And I can't get enough  
Must be love on the brain, yeah  
And it keeps cursing my name  
No matter what I do, I'm no good without you  
And I can't get enough  
Must be love on the brain

__  


Vanessa tried to avoid Brooke’s eyes throughout the whole song, but she could still feel the intensity of the moment between them. She pretended not to notice, though.

At the end of the song, Brooke stood up without saying a word. She walked towards the other side of the room and, only then, turned around to briefly look at Vanessa. She then proceeded to walk out of the door into the spacious corridor.

Vanessa understood immediately what that was supposed to mean. She waited about two minutes before she followed her. 

When she opened the bathroom door, Brooke looked up into the mirror. Their eyes met in the reflection, flashbacks of their first meeting crowding Vanessa’s mind. 

“Lock the door,” Brooke said.

Vanessa complied and, then, she was once again the one to close the distance between them. As soon as their lips connected, it was like electricity.

Vanessa expected to see actual sparks in the air when Brooke started to touch her body. She couldn’t breathe properly, and her mind started to obfuscate. However, when she felt Brooke sliding her underwear off from under her dress, she regained a bit of clarity.

“No,” she said, and then pushed Brooke against the wall, “it’s my turn.” 

She unbuttoned Brooke’s blazer, only then realizing that she was wearing no undershirt or bra. She kissed her chest and took special care of her nipples, pleasantly surprised to find out that they were extremely sensitive and that biting them softly was a surefire way to elicit delicious little moans out of Brooke’s mouth.

Feeling her being so pliant under her touch made her go almost crazy with power. She wanted to do everything and anything to her. She wanted to hear her whimper and she wanted to see her pretty face contort with pleasure, her full lips agape.

She slid to her knees and lifted up her skirt. She was wearing expensive-looking lingerie, but Vanessa really didn’t care about the panties in that very moment. She nonchalantly slid them off and looked up at Brooke. She was staring at her, her chest heaving.

Vanessa gently took her right foot and lifted it up until it was positioned on the sink. Brooke was fully open right in front of her now.

She glanced up one last time, and then tasted her.

She had spent countless nights imagining how it would feel, but not even her wildest dream measured up to the real thing. She felt like she was getting high on Brooke, and she didn’t stop until she was coming undone — pretty whimpers and little gasps, her body fluttering.

It wasn’t until Vanessa had got home and taken her dress off to shower later that night, that she realized she wasn’t wearing her underwear underneath — Brooke had never given it back to her.

The following morning, Vanessa woke up to the sound of her phone vibrating. She tried to find it with her eyes still closed but had to give in and finally open them, the light coming from the window causing her to squint. She then managed to retrieve her phone — her mother was calling.

“Mom?”

“Good morning, _mija_,” her mother greeted, “How’d the wedding go?”

“Oh, hm… Well. It went… well,” was all Vanessa managed to mumble.

“Okay… Did you take any pictures?”

“Not really, no. I didn’t… I didn't really use my phone.”

“Oh, okay, got it. Everything good?”

Vanessa could tell, even over the phone, that her mother’s brows were currently furrowing.

“Yeah. Yes. Everything’s fine, why are you asking?”

Anabell hesitated for a couple of seconds before replying.

“Because I’m your mother?”

“Uhm.” 

“Okay, well… Anyway, I only called to check on you. I hope you have a great day, _cariño_.”

“Right, bye.”

“Bye.” 

Vanessa tossed her phone somewhere at the end of her bed. She still had a bit of time before she had to get ready for work, so she pulled her blanket up over her head and tried to get some extra sleep.

Not even two minutes later, though, her phone vibrated again.

It was a text this time, and it was from Brooke.

"_Thinking of you, baby._"

Attached was a picture of Vanessa’s panties.

Before Vanessa could even put her bags down, she saw Nina heading straight for her desk, holding a couple dozen files in one hand and a steaming cup of coffee in the other.

“Scotland Yard just called,” she said, “they finally got that Russian, the one we briefly investigated last year too, remember? Zamolodchikova — truly a nasty one. She’s refusing to talk, but they did uncover some valuable information when they raided her hiding place. They’re all somehow linked these assassins, it’s like they all hang out in their spare time, between one murder and the other… Anyway, I need to send you on a little scouting mission in Primrose Hill: we’ve got reasons to believe that that’s where Villanelle’s been staying. Can you do that?”

“What, today?”

Nina nodded.

“Couldn’t… Couldn’t Scarlet do that instead?”

Vanessa’s brain had stopped working as soon as she had heard Villanelle’s name roll out of Nina’s lips. Even forming sentences was really challenging, so going on a mission seemed practically impossible.

“Well, I already asked her, actually. She said it’d be best if you went…” Nina said, slightly perplexed.

“Okay. Yeah. I’ll go. Do you have an address?”

“137, Gloucester Avenue. Take a look around, check the area for anything suspicious, any possible sign of Villanelle. Do you need someone to go with you? I can probably find an agent…”

“No,” Vanessa answered a bit too quickly, “no- I mean, it’s fine. I’ll draw less attention if I go alone.”

“Sure. Let me know how it goes.”

Vanessa’s mind was going a million miles per hour. She was walking along Gloucester Avenue, reading the house numbers and trying desperately to calm herself down.

She knew she wasn’t going to actually see Villanelle, but even just the thought of possibly finding herself in her proximity made her feel terribly nervous.

Number 135 appeared into her field of vision and she started to hear a familiar tune. She couldn’t quite pinpoint it, though. She kept walking, the music getting louder.

And then she saw her. 

Inside number 137, Brooke was swaying around, the window and curtains wide open. Her eyes were closed, a serene smile on her lips.  
She was pretending to waltz with someone, and Vanessa was captured. She had noticed in the past just how strong and agile Brooke was, but she had never quite registered how graceful she could be too.

As the song chorus came on, Vanessa’s knees started to feel weak: _and baby I'm fist fighting with fire, just to get close to you…_

Her breath caught in her throat. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t witness one more second of that without starting to scream. So she ran.

Back at the office she attempted to weakly sidetrack Nina by saying that she did inspect the area but noticed nothing relevant. Nina just nodded, visibly disappointed. She felt awful.

Vanessa sat at her desk, trying to finally regain her composure. It had been at least thirty minutes, yet her hands were still trembling.

She saw her phone screen light up.

It was a text from Brooke. It simply said: “_Hey baby,_” but attached to it was a picture. A very revealing picture.

Brooke was laying in her bed, soft white sunlit sheets surrounding her. She wasn’t wearing a top, the sun illuminating the smooth skin of her chest, her eyes looking lighter than ever. Her hand was reaching for-

Vanessa jumped as she heard something shatter right behind her. She turned around.

Scarlet was standing right there, her hand suspended in mid-air, her cup of tea completely shattered on the ground.

“Is… Is that-?”

Vanessa was petrified.

She could tell Scarlet was about to hyperventilate, and she didn’t know what to do to prevent it.

“Oh my God. Oh. My. God. Vanessa.”

Scarlet stood in silence, opening her mouth to say something and then just closing it back up. She then rested her head in between her hands, trying to center herself.

Eventually, Scarlet dragged Vanessa to the bathroom, a tight hold on her elbow, and started to speak in a hushed voice.

“Please tell me that’s just some weird piece of evidence. Please tell me you’re not sexting Villanelle.”

Vanessa didn’t answer.

“Oh my God. Okay, then. Okay. That’s… Okay. Please tell me you’re not actually fucking her. Please, Vanessa.”

Vanessa blinked fast, but still didn’t speak.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” Scarlet raised her voice before looking quickly around and lowering it back down, “That’s a professional murderer, you remember that, right? She kills people for a job. And you thought… You had the brilliant idea to fuck her? At least tell me that it only happened once— Actually, no, on second thought: I don’t even want to know.”

She took a break again.

Vanessa still couldn’t look her in the eyes. She was dumbfounded.

Scarlet sighed.

“Please, please, please at least tell me you didn’t catch feelings. Please, Vanessa, please.”

Silence.

“Okay,” Scarlet breathed in thorough her nose and out through her mouth as if she were in the middle of a yoga class.

“Okay. Let’s not… Let’s not freak out. Listen to me, Vanessa: I can guarantee you that there is no pussy on this entire godforsaken planet that is bomb enough for you to completely turn your back on everything you’ve ever stood for and worked for. Understood? So here’s what you’re going to do: you’re going to carefully plant every single tiny detail you’ve found out about Villanelle in her file and then hand it over to Nina. If I do know her as well as I think I do, she won’t check it too thoroughly. She just wants this case to be closed once and for all, and she’s been talking about a possible promotion… So, well, let’s just say she won’t care about procedure too much, okay? So that’s what you’re going to do. And then, once Villanelle’s safely locked up behind bars, where she belongs, you’ll forget about her. And move on.”

Scarlet’s words kept echoing inside of Vanessa’s brain. She knew she was right, but she didn’t know what the hell she was supposed to do. It wasn’t like she could just break up with Brooke — they weren’t even in a relationship.

Besides, she didn’t want to. She had tried to type some of the information she had obtained down, but she had felt so dirty she had had to delete it all from her laptop — it was nerve-wracking.

It also didn’t help that she hadn’t heard from Brooke in days. She had enthusiastically replied to her infamous text, its content engraved in Vanessa’s mind forever, but hadn’t got anything back.

The fact that Brooke was slow dancing alone to _Love On The Brain_, probably going through the previous night’s events in her mind, to the point that she had felt the need to touch herself… That was way too much for Vanessa’s poor little brain to process; and it was also way too much for her poor little pussy to withstand.

She was helpless.

On Thursday evening, when she got back from work, she found a package on the landing. She knew it was from Brooke even before she had opened it.

Inside there was a bottle of expensive-looking eau de parfum by a French brand she couldn’t even pronounce, an Hermès headscarf and a postcard from Paris.

“_À bientôt,_” it simply said on the back. 

Vanessa wasn’t too sure what it all meant. Why hadn’t Brooke simply texted her? Was that little writing on the postcard an invitation? Or was she reading too much into it? She didn’t know what to do.

So she decided to do the stupidest, most reckless and shortsighted thing she had ever dared to do in her life: she hopped on the Friday morning Eurostar train to Paris to go see her professional assassin, potentially psychopathic crush.

The magnitude of her actions only fully hit her when the train was already leaving St Pancras, no intermediate stops ahead but Paris Gare du Nord. She was frantic. She didn’t know what to do with her hands, her fidgeting clearly starting to get on the man sitting in front of her’s nerves. So she did the only thing that remotely made sense to her — she texted Brooke.

“_À bientôt._”

“_There will be a car waiting for you at the station,_” was Brooke’s reply.

The car dropped her off in a narrow street in the IX Arrondissement. She didn’t quite know where she was supposed to go, so she just stood there with her little carry-on bag. 

Not even thirty seconds later, Brooke appeared: she was standing on a threshold, only a pink satin nightshirt on. She waved at Vanessa and took the carry-on from her hands when she walked closer.

“Let me carry this for you, baby,” she said, “the elevator’s out of service.”

They walked up four flights of stairs, and then Brooke showed Vanessa the way to her apartment. 

“I though you lived in London?” asked Vanessa.

“Not really. I usually prefer Paris,” she answered, “but… Let’s just say that I had reasons to be in London recently.”

The apartment had big windows and high ceilings, which were refined with elegant molding. The walls were completely white, but all of the curious little trinkets and decorations made the rooms feel very homely — books in various languages, singular-looking sculptures and ornaments, paintings and posters, empty perfume bottles…

Vanessa was fascinated by every single object and went on a lengthy tour of the apartment, touching and inspecting everything. Brooke let her.

She found an old picture of Brooke as a kid hidden inside a copy of Marguerite Yourcenar’s Mémoires d’Hadrien.

“Where did you grow up?” she asked.

Brooke hesitated.

“Canada.”

“Really?”

“Well, yes. Although there’s no way for me to know where I’m really from.”

Vanessa looked at her, a silent question in her eyes.

“You see, I’ve never met my biological parents. They’re dead, as a matter of fact — I grew up an orphan.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s whatever. When I was eight they pretty much gave me away to this Russian guy. A criminal. I don’t even know what his original intentions were for me, but… I guess he took a liking to me. He took me under his wing.”

“Under his wing?”

Brooke chuckled softly.

“Yeah, well… He paid for my ballet lessons. I assume it was a way to buy my trust. It worked. He started to teach me things… How to fight, how to use weapons. Stuff like that.”

Vanessa could sense something shifting inside of Brooke’s mind.

“I used to question it. I didn’t know what it was for, and I was scared. But I didn’t know any different, and I had no one else in the world. So I just… went along with it. And now here I am.”

“You could stop,” tried to say Vanessa.

“No I couldn’t,” laughed bitterly Brooke, “you think I haven't tried already? There’s no way out. It’s either death or life in prison for me.”

Vanessa’s phone rang causing the both of them to wince.

It was Scarlet. Vanessa put her phone on silent and ignored it.

Brooke walked over to the bed and sat on it. Vanessa followed her. 

They talked for hours. 

For a few seconds, when she woke up, Vanessa had no idea where she was. Then everything started to come back to her: Brooke opening up about her past, her talking about her childhood in Puerto Rico and Florida, telling Brooke about her mom and brothers, the two of them cuddling on the bed and then slowly falling asleep…

“You’re awake!”

Vanessa turned around: Brooke was walking towards the bed, balancing an elegant tray filled with fresh croissants, orange juice and coffee on her right hand. 

“You like pastries, yeah?”

“Sure.”

They ate in comfortable silence, just feeling content of being in the other’s presence. 

After breakfast, Brooke took Vanessa on a tour of Paris’ most iconic landmarks. They took stroll along the Seine and later ended up shopping in the Louvre-Tuileries district.

There was a shared awareness between the two of them: they knew that whatever they had going on was completely absurd and short-lived — but they didn’t care. Or didn’t want to care, more like. 

In Paris, where nobody knew them, they could pretend to be just another couple who was visiting the city of love for the first time together. 

They went to dinner in a fancy restaurant, where Vanessa couldn’t understand anything that was written on the menu and Brooke had to explain it to her. The portions were so tiny that they actually ended up eating kebab from a street vendor later in the night.

They stumbled back to the apartment, the champagne heightening their senses and making them feel euphoric.

As they walked towards the bedroom, Vanessa unzipped her trousers while walking backwards and looking directly at Brooke, a challenge in her eyes.

Brooke was looking right back at her, and started to take off her own clothes. She actually tried to safely put away her no doubt expensive blazer she’d been wearing, but Vanessa gave her no chance: she dragged her towards the bed by the wrist and then playfully shoved her.

Brooke was now laying on the bed, wearing nothing but a sheer black bralette and her skirt, which was already unzipped on the side. Vanessa slid it off and then straddled Brooke. She smiled at her — she looked so beautiful sprawled out underneath her like that.

Vanessa leaned down to kiss her, Brooke started to stroke her thighs and then placed her hands firmly on her waist. They looked at each other. They didn’t say anything — there was no need to.

Brooke sat up and flipped them over, removed all of the remaining clothes from Vanessa’s body and spent what felt like hours worshipping her body: she kissed her all over — her neck, her clavicles, her breasts, her nipples, her stomach, and then down to her hipbones, thighs, knees, and ankles; she then took special care of her inner thighs, licking and biting and kissing until Vanessa turned into a whimpering mess.

“Please,” she begged, “Brooke.”

And Brooke complied without delay.

The feeling of Brooke’s tongue on her again made Vanessa’s mind go back to that evening in her own apartment. It felt like a full circle moment, except-

“Wait,” Vanessa said softly, “let’s do it this way.”

She sat up and took off Brooke’s underwear, which she was still wearing for some mysterious reason. This was the first time they had both been completely naked in the other’s presence — no ruffled skirts, no bras getting in the way, no pants around the ankles.

They took their time to explore each other’s body, the intimacy of it all seemingly casting a strange spell on the room, which now felt like the only real place left on earth, everything else vanished.

Vanessa slid in between Brooke’s thighs, their sexes touching for the first time. Brooke looked her in the eyes and then started moving — tentatively at first, and then built a pace.

When they came, they held each other through it, and fell asleep still holding on.

Vanessa opened her eyes, a motorbike in the street speeding up causing a loud rumble to echo in the distance. The yellowish light emanating from the streetlamp was filtering through the curtains, making it possible for Vanessa to approximately see. In the big gilded mirror that was propped up against the wall opposite the bed, she could just about make out hers and Brooke’s reflections — their naked bodies tangled in an embrace. For the first time in a very long time Vanessa felt whole.

She remembered the day she had moved from Florida to London, the anxiety and, at the same time, the excitement she had felt. She was convinced that moving to London would've been her life’s turning point. And, in a sense, it was: professionally, she had achieved pretty much everything she had ever dreamed of. 

But there was something that always separated her from other people. She always felt alone up in her head, no matter how many people were physically in the room with her, no matter how much of a clown she forced herself to be. She felt lonely, empty. 

And the emptiness never left her, she carried it with herself from Puerto Rico to Florida, and from Florida to London. 

But right in that moment, somewhere in Paris, she felt like that hole in her chest was finally gone.

When she woke up again in the morning, Vanessa kept her eyes shut, half expecting Brooke to surprise her with breakfast again. But she couldn’t smell the croissants in the air, and she couldn’t hear any noise from the kitchen.

So she opened her eyes. 

The discarded clothes from the night before had disappeared from the floor and the bed — Vanessa’s were neatly folded on the edge of the bed, while Brooke’s were nowhere to be seen. 

“Brooke?” she tried.

No answer.

She sat up and looked into the big mirror. Her reflection was staring right back at her, tousled hair and everything. But, right next to it, there was something that wasn’t there the night before. 

A small message written in Brooke’s handwriting — it was bright red against the mirror’s icy silver:

_Sorry baby._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Love On The Brain faintly plays in the background]
> 
> To be continued...? Who knows. For now, I am so very sorry! If you want to yell at me, please do feel free to do so down below in the comments or on tumblr, @ silentccries or @broccolihytes.
> 
> Love, B.
> 
> P.s. I have no clue how anything at MI6 works, so I just made it up. [Nina Bo’nina Brown voice] Sue me.


	2. II.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vanessa had been feeling restless all day, drinking at least four cups of black coffee and continuously bouncing her leg until Scarlet, whose desk was connected to Vanessa’s, had peremptorily asked her to “stop with the fucking earthquake.”
> 
> But now, as she opened the main door, she felt a lot calmer. She was looking forward to a soothing bath, maybe she was even going to light some candles and pour herself a glass of wine…
> 
> “I figured the breaking into your apartment thing was getting kinda old.”

The phone wouldn’t stop going off, the metallic sound of its vehement ringing echoing in Vanessa’s skull. She was just about to get up and throw the entire thing against the nearest wall, when the owner of said phone finally walked into the room and silenced it.

Scarlet was holding two cups of coffee and a paper bag that Vanessa was pretty sure contained two cheese Danishes, judging by the sweet smell it was emanating. The annoyance that had just taken over Vanessa’s entire body suddenly left her, leaving room for an unusual sense of affection towards the tall woman that was currently handing her the paper bag.

Scarlet and Vanessa had never been best friends. They respected each other and they even occasionally hung out outside of work, but Vanessa had always been somewhat wary of Scarlet — she couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but there was something about her aloof presence and flighty personality that left Vanessa feeling hesitant about their relationship.

Vanessa liked people to be much like herself: trustworthy, present, resolute. Her mother always used to say: “_Don’t waste your time on people who don’t give back the same energy you give them_”; and Vanessa had pretty much always lived by that, picking carefully those whom she deemed truly worthy of her affection — up until a blonde leggy assassin had shown up at her threshold, that is.

Scarlet was volatile, pandering to the ebbs and flows of her moods, hence making it really hard for Vanessa to assess whether she could consider her a real friend or not. She was extremely professional and reliable when it came to work, but, as far as personal matters were concerned, Scarlet surely wasn’t the first person Vanessa would’ve normally turned to.

Sure, perhaps under torture, Vanessa would have also admitted that, once upon a time, on her first day on the job, she had found herself being captivated by Scarlet’s looks — she had that Old Hollywood type of beauty, with the sultry eyes and the ever so perfectly styled hair, which had everyone feeling mesmerized. She always kept her nails long and sharp, though, which is why Vanessa had never even bothered to make a move.

It was only a superficial crush, though, and their friendship had never deepened much after that; but now, being Scarlet the only person on the entire planet who knew about Vanessa’s biggest secret, their relationship had been forced to evolve precipitously in the span of just a couple of weeks — which is why Vanessa knew exactly what Scarlet was about to say as she chewed on her Danish pastry.

“So, how are you feeling?” she asked slowly, her heavy tone making it abundantly clear that the answer she was expecting wasn’t a circumstantial one.

“Scarlet, I’m fine! I already told you.”

The precarious excuse Vanessa had made up and recited that morning to justify her two-day disappearance had barely been sufficient to placate Nina’s nagging questioning, but it surely hadn’t been nearly enough to put Scarlet’s suspicions to rest.

“So you’re just going to sit there,” Scarlet started, “look me straight in the eye, and tell me that you had to leave because your _abuelita_ was sick, but then, as soon as you got to Florida, she got better and— no, wait, what was it that you told Nina?”

She paused emphatically, tilting her head slightly to the side and narrowing her eyes.

“Please, Vanessa,” she finally continued, “don’t insult my intelligence.”

Vanessa hesitated. She knew she couldn’t drag it out any longer. 

“Okay.”

She took a big breath. 

Scarlet sat on the edge of her desk, waiting, her eyes still completely focused on Vanessa. She looked like a hawk preying on an unfortunate prairie animal, and Vanessa knew there was no point trying to run anymore.

“I saw her again,” she looked around the office to make sure they were completely alone, “Villanelle.”

“But it was the last time. Ever, I mean,” she then added, slowly and with as much gravitas as she could conjure.

She was supposed to be relieved that a goddamned assassin wasn’t going to be showing up at her doorstep anymore; she was supposed to feel liberated, like an animal that has been kept in a cage for too long and then finally freed — but that just wasn’t the case. 

Every time her mind managed to penetrate the airtight fortress Vanessa had build around any recollection of what had happened in Paris over the previous days, the unmistakable bitter taste of disappointment found its way back to her mouth.

Everything she had felt during their little Parisian escapade was now tainted by a dose of resentment, embarrassment and, above all, sadness. She had felt like a fucking loser that morning — lost in Paris with a dead phone, forced to ask an annoyed French guy for directions to the Gare du Nord, her heart breaking at every step she took. She kept repeating in her head those words that had been written on the mirror, unable to fully understand their meaning, and wanting to scream and cry at the same time. She felt pathetic.

Everything in that apartment had felt so warm and comfortable: the bed with the soft sheets, Brooke’s smooth skin brushing up against hers, the suffused lighting… She should’ve known they were on borrowed time; she should’ve known that all of that warmth and wholeness were only temporary.

“So it’s over for good?” Scarlet asked, causing Vanessa to snap out of her thoughts.

“Yes,” Vanessa heard herself say, her voice surprisingly loud in the otherwise silent room. And the word sounded like a verdict — one she knew she wasn’t ready to accept, but had to.

“Good. You did what you had to do,” Scarlet said holding out a sympathetic hand to her. Vanessa took Scarlet’s hand in hers, trying to hide her inner turmoil from the other woman as best as she could.

She obviously wasn’t going to correct Scarlet: how could she admit to anyone that she had managed to be dumped even by an assassin? She may had intimately given up on dignity, but she had to keep up at least a facade.

She cleared her throat, gently retracting her hand from Scarlet’s grip.

“Yeah. I had to.”

“And you also know what you have to do now, right?”

Vanessa’s mind went blank. She had no idea what Scarlet was referring to.

“The file!” the other exclaimed, baffled by Vanessa’s confusion.

“Oh, right! Yes. Yes, I’ll… I’ll do that. Of course.”

She could tell Scarlet wasn’t completely convinced, so she opened her laptop, hoping that it would be enough to put an end to the conversation.

“I’ll start right away, actually.”

“Right. I’ll leave you to it, then.”

And then, as she was typing random words to make it look like she was working, the realization dawned on Vanessa: she had to actually do it now. She had been stupid enough to think that there was something different about Villanelle, that she had somehow found herself trapped into a life that wasn’t her own and that she really wanted to change. But wasn’t that bright red “_Sorry baby_” scribbled on that mirror in Paris pretty much a _mea culpa_?

Vanessa couldn’t make up excuses for Villanelle anymore. And she couldn’t excuse her own insane feelings for her either. 

So she slowly started to type, her frustration becoming her new driving force. All of the pent up resentment began to sizzle through her body as it finally found a way out, every word that appeared on the screen becoming its physical manifestation.

She typed out two full pages, her digits hitting the keys especially hard, as if they were somehow responsible for what had happened to her and therefore needed to pay the price. 

This was her favorite version of herself: resolute, efficient, confident. That was the person that had decided to move four thousands miles away from home without batting an eye, and it was the person that had worked body and soul to get where she was.

She had let that Vanessa be dormant for far too long, indecisiveness and lack of resolution rendering her a slave to the events — but the time was up. Now was the time to act, the time to finally do the right thing.

So she finished typing and saved the draft. 

Was she supposed to send it to Nina right away? It was way past five in the afternoon already. She transferred the file to a flash drive and threw it in her bag — it could wait, she figured.

Her phone had been going off for more than two full minutes, forcing Vanessa to cut her time in the shower short. She wrapped a towel around her body and she picked up without even checking who the caller was — there was only one person that she knew could be that relentless, after all.

“Silky!”

“Bitch! What took you so long? I could’ve flown to the moon and back in the time it took you to pick up.”

“I was in the shower! Besides, it really wasn’t that long, you just like to be dramatic.”

Silky chuckled.

“Maybe so,” she admitted.

“So… How’s the honeymoon going? How’s the hubby been treating you?”

“It’s going great! We’re on our last stop — Paris. It’s lovely around here, which is… confusing. I never thought I’d ever be calling a place that’s this full of cranky frenchmen and that smells this much like piss lovely, and yet… here I am!”

Vanessa put on a forceful smile and kept it there until Silky was done speaking, as if her friend could see her through the phone. She faked a laugh and racked her brain to think of something to say. She couldn’t come up with much. 

“Yeah… I bet it is. Lovely, I mean.”

“Oh, you’ve never been?”

“Ehm… No,” Vanessa lied, a lump quickly forming in her throat.

“Really? You have to go. There’s something magical in the air… Anyway the city is nice and all, but, let me tell you, the best part of it has been getting breakfast in bed every morning: brioches, croissants, pains au chocolat — you name it! My man is spoiling me. My daily carbohydrate intake has never been this high, and, bitch, you know that’s saying something!”

Vanessa was desperately trying to be happy for Silky, she really was, but flashes of Brooke holding a tray full of pastries started creeping into her mind.

Luckily, her dear friend had never been one to need much encouragement when it came to talking, so she just kept going on her own.

“Honestly, who would’ve ever thought I’d be this lucky, huh? Remember all those times I’ve cried on your shoulder because of all those douchebags who treated me like garbage? And now look at me — I’ve found me a good man who feeds me _and_ fucks me right! You know, I think we broke the bed the other night…”

“Oh, God,” Vanessa flinched, “well, that’s where I sign off. I really don’t want to know all that nasty stuff.”

Silky laughed.

“Okay then, as you wish. I should go back to my husband anyway.”

“Yeah. See you soon?”

“You bet,” Silky replied, “I’ll send you a postcard from Paris even.”

“I really don’t think that’s necessary,” Vanessa said hastily, flashbacks crowding her mind.

“Why not? Don’t be silly, I’ll send you one. Bye! Love you!”

“Love you too.”

Vanessa put her phone down next to the sink — she had a missed call from an unregistered number, but she didn’t pay it any mind. She looked up into the mirror and studied the reflection that was staring back at her from the fogged-up surface.

She randomly remembered something her older brother used to tell her when they were kids, just to scare her off — it was about some beetles that lived in some desert in Africa that could crawl inside a person’s body and devour them from the inside. In retrospect, the existence of such creatures seemed unlikely, however, that was exactly what Vanessa felt like in that moment — as though something was eating her alive from the inside. 

She turned the light off and went to bed.

That night she tossed and turned in bed for hours, memories of Paris mercilessly taking over her entire brain. It was a lost battle: she didn’t get any sleep.

The platform was crammed with people on their way to work, waiting for the train with varying degrees of patience — businessmen and women wearing their dark suits and carrying their briefcases, some reading the newspaper with a skeptically raised eyebrow, others just starting ahead and periodically checking the time; a strangely familiar woman holding a huge flower bouquet clumsily trying to type something on her phone; a man with three yapping chihuahuas on a leash trying to get them to calm down… 

Vanessa had a habit of attentively observing everyone around her, trying to figure out things about them: their age, their occupation, their marital status… It was an exercise she had started doing during her training and had kept doing since.

That morning, though, she found it nearly impossible to focus on anything other than getting herself to work, the double espresso she had chugged down before stepping out of the apartment seemingly a useless measure in the fight against her sleep-deprived brain.

She really wasn’t looking forward to the day’s work. Nina had assigned her to a new case and, for the first time since the Villanelle fiasco, she was supposed to do some undercover work.

Vanessa was feeling really uncertain and strangely conflicted. She knew it was completely ridiculous and nonsensical, but spying on someone that wasn’t Villanelle made her feel… like a traitor.

She didn’t care about some random human and/or drug trafficker: with the information she had been provided, she could’ve probably tracked him down within two days. Easily. But where was the fun in that? There was no competing, no chasing, and, most importantly, no… scissoring.

The sudden clatter of the approaching train roused her, saving her from that dangerous place she knew her train of thought was leading her to.

On the train, she found herself squished between the legion of businesspeople on one side and the flower-woman on the other. The thick foliage of the bouquet the latter was precariously holding was the only thing preventing their faces from being uncomfortably close.

The train stopped, the passengers shuffling to let people through as the doors slid open. Flower-woman lost her balance and accidentally stepped on Vanessa’s right foot.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!”

Vanessa tried to mask the pain with a smile, so as not to make her feel bad.

“No worries.”

After that, Vanessa caught flower-woman glancing at her a couple of times from behind her overflowing bouquet. She seemed to be debating something in her head.

“I’m so sorry again,” she started, “but I… Well, at the risk of making a fool of myself, I have to ask — do you remember me?”

Vanessa’s face must have betrayed her confusion, because flower-woman kept talking without waiting for a reply.

“I’m Grace,” she said, “we met briefly one night, in Soho…”

The days turned into weeks and the weeks turned into months, while the meeting with Grace had turned into a date, and later into a blossoming relationship. 

Grace was like a breath of fresh air. She was bubbly and full of life, and she had such a positive outlook on life that it often caused Vanessa to reconsider her own. She was working in her aunt’s flower shop, but her real dream was that of becoming a journalist; she had had a couple setbacks in her life but she had never felt discouraged, her disarming faith in the future never wavering. She was an extremely lovable person and, when they were together, Vanessa felt like she could borrow some happiness from Grace.

But that’s what it was: it was borrowed.

Grace was like the sun, shining bright and providing light and warmth to everyone around her; Vanessa, on the other hand, felt like nothing but a moon — not producing her own light, but only reflecting someone else’s.

Nevertheless, she went on with it, just like she went on with her work on the Villanelle case — on autopilot, without putting any actual thought into it.

Nina had insisted Vanessa kept working on the case, even after Scarlet had conveniently suggested someone else from the department worked on it, given that it had been dormant for a while anyway.

However, Nina was still convinced that there was some important work for them to do on it, so Vanessa had had no choice but to resignedly accept her fate of staring at pictures and words that constantly reminded her of Villanelle’s existence.

Her work days were spent at her desk, reliving in her head the landslide that had been her life ever since Villanelle had walked into it. She had got used to the lingering feelings of regret, but she still struggled to justify her own behavior — how could she turn her back on her life’s work so carelessly? How could she risk everything she had worked so hard on just to get into a woman’s pants?

Truth to be told, though, she always knew she was the romantic type — she always loved those overdramatic romantic movies her and her mom used to spend entire evenings watching, consuming pints and pints of ice-cream and crying on each other’s shoulder; and, as a teenager, she always liked to dream up scenarios of dramatic love stories where her and a mysterious girl overcame obstacle after obstacle just to be with each other because their love was just too strong. 

As life had promptly shown her, though, the dream world in which her mind lived and the real world through which she cruised, hardly ever ended up coinciding; so she just threw herself into work headfirst and started feigning disinterest for romance, although she secretly kept craving it.

And in the end she did get her stormy love story. But it just so happened to be with an assassin — which was an ulterior complication she wasn’t quite prepared for.

How could she accept that those very hands that had been all over her body, had also committed all those terrible acts? How could Brooke have killed all of those people? Villanelle’s file said that she was probably a sociopath — the main distinction of a sociopath being that they can’t feel real emotions, but only mimic those of the people around them so as to appear “normal”. But Vanessa just couldn’t bring herself to believe that everything Brooke had experienced with her was fake — the bathroom, the wedding, Paris… Was it truly all just an act?

And was she acting too when she caught her dancing around her living room to _Love On The Brain_? There’s no way she knew Vanessa was watching her…

“Vanessa?”

Grace’s voice sounded like it belonged to a completely different dimension, somewhere far away.

Vanessa looked up. She was leaning against the doorpost, wearing her baby blue pajama shirt. 

She looked cute. Vanessa felt guilty.

“Are you coming to bed?”

“Yes, just a minute.”

“Okay,” she said softly.

As Grace left the room Vanessa’s hand acted on its own accord and grabbed her phone from the coffee table.

She then twisted it in her hands a couple of times. She was torn.

She scrolled through her contacts list until she found a number saved as “NO.”

She shut her eyes.

_No matter what I do_

Her thumb was hovering over the call button.

_I’m no good without you_

She pressed it.

_And I can’t get enough_

Ringing tone.

_Must be love on the brain_

Ringing tone.

Ringing tone.

There was no answer.

“What the—”

Vanessa was startled awake by the loud noise of something shattering echoing through her apartment.

She looked to her side — Grace wasn’t in bed.

“Grace?” she tried, alarmed.

“Oh, Vanessa,” her muffled voice came from the kitchen, “I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to— But then…”

When she walked into the room, Vanessa found Grace on her knees, trying to pick up glass shards with her bare hands.

“Careful! You’ll end up cutting yourself like that. Here, let me get the broom.”

“There was someone in here,” Grace explained as Vanessa rummaged through the utility closet. 

“I got up to get myself a glass of water,” she continued, “so I went to the sink and when I turned around… There was someone. A woman, I’m pretty sure. She ran out so quickly I didn’t even…”

Vanessa felt her blood freeze in her veins. She had finally found the dustpan she was looking for, but she stood there, paralyzed and unable to register the rest of Grace’s words.

She could feel the panic starting to build up in her chest, but she couldn’t let it overcome her. She took a deep breath and then walked back into the kitchen.

“Are you sure you didn’t just… imagine it?” she tried, as she handed her the broom.

“No! At least… I don’t think so. She looked so real.”

Vanessa pretended to take a quick look around. Her mind was still going a hundred miles per hour, but she tried her best to hide it.

“Grace… The door is fine. The apartment is fine — there’s nothing missing.”

“So you’re saying…”

“You were half asleep. And you do have a very vivid imagination.”

“Right. You’re probably right. I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

“For the glass.”

Grace looked up at her. She was still on her knees, the dustpan in her hand; she looked really small. Vanessa helped her up and then cupped her face.

“It’s just a glass,” she whispered sweetly, “go to bed. I’ll finish cleaning up.”

As Grace left the room, Vanessa had to brace herself against the kitchen counter. The mere thought of Brooke being so close to her after all those months was too much. Why was she there? What did she want? Vanessa’s heart was thumping, her ribcage feeling like it was about to explode.

She wanted to run out into the street and scurry around like a madwoman until she found her again. She didn’t care that she was in her pajamas and that her hair probably looked a mess; she didn’t care that Grace was waiting for her in bed; she didn’t even care about all the hurt and sadness Brooke had cause her anymore.

She wanted to find Brooke. She needed to.

But she knew she couldn’t.

And then she saw it — a small package on the coffee table. It was wrapped in red shiny paper with no bow or note. When she opened it, she felt a strange mixture of anger and longing take over her body.

There, neatly folded in the center of the paper square, were a pair of panties — not just any pair, but the one Brooke had slid off of her body and then taken ownership of all those weeks ago at Silky’s wedding.

Vanessa didn’t quite know what to make of it. Had Brooke sneaked into her apartment just to give her a pair of underwear back? And with no note, no message — nothing?

For a minute she felt tempted to chuck them in the trash, anger boiling inside of her, but then she figured it would have been a waste to throw a perfectly good pair of panties away. So she didn’t.

Walking home had turned out to be a wise choice, the cold air acting like a cooling balm for her racing thoughts.

Vanessa had been feeling restless all day, drinking at least four cups of black coffee and continuously bouncing her leg until Scarlet, whose desk was connected to Vanessa’s, had peremptorily asked her to “stop with the fucking earthquake.”

But now, as she opened the main door, she felt a lot calmer. She was looking forward to a soothing bath, maybe she was even going to light some candles and pour herself a glass of wine…

“I figured the breaking into your apartment thing was getting kinda old.”

She looked up, her neck hurting with the suddenness of her movement.

There, sitting on the stairs right next to her apartment door, was Brooke.

“What are you doing here?”

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” she said, an uncharacteristically shy smile on her lips.

She looked so beautiful it made Vanessa want to punch her in the fucking stomach. How dare she.

“What are you now, a fucking vampire?”

“What?” 

Vanessa could tell Brooke was actually a bit nervous, her gait drastically different from her usual smoothly confident one. She had never seen her like this.

“You need a formal invitation to get into my apartment now?” she explained, “It never seemed to be an issue before.”

“Oh,” Brooke said as she chuckled weakly.

She walked in, looking around as if she had never been there. Vanessa observed her as she slowly paced around her living room — she seemed to be mentally preparing for something.

“So?” she finally said, awkwardly raising her arms and then letting them fall back down at her sides.

“So what?” Vanessa replied, surprising even herself by how authoritative her voice sounded. She really wasn’t used to having the upper hand with Brooke.

“Who was she?”

“Who?”

Vanessa knew exactly who she was talking about, but she wanted to make her squirm.

Brooke sighed, looking down at her feet.

“The girl. The one from the other night,” she specified, her hands clenching, “who was she?”

She then looked up, and Vanessa saw something in her eyes she had never seen before — she seemed jealous, but, above all, she appeared to be… hurt.

Vanessa didn’t know how to react, so she reacted the only way that seemed reasonable to her.

“You fucking bitch,” she spat out, shoving Brooke with all the force her body could muster.

Brooke stumbled back and then, once she regained her balance, just stood there — her mouth slightly agape, her eyes fixed on Vanessa, her hands up in defense; but she didn’t dare move a muscle or make a sound.

Vanessa pushed her again: this time Brooke’s back hit the wooden bookshelf, the impact causing a picture frame to fall down and shatter on the ground.

“I can’t believe the fucking nerve of you,” Vanessa continued, feeling like she could’ve run a full marathon fueled solely by the anger that was coursing through her body.

“You leave me alone, in Paris, with no explanation but a fucking two-word message on a mirror — which was very flattering by the way, making me feel like a Nineteenth century French prostitute whose client just left without paying — and, now, you show up here and you expect me to… What is it that you expect me to do exactly?”

Vanessa’s hands had closed into fists at some point during her outburst without her even realizing, her whole body shaking with rage.

Brooke was still staring at her, an indecipherable look on her face. 

“I wanted to explain,” she said finally, her voice hoarse.

“You didn’t!” Vanessa retorted.

“I called, you didn’t pick up.”

Brooke’s tone had become disarmingly frank. Vanessa was quiet.

“And then _you_ called so I came here. But you had…” she winced, “company.”

Vanessa couldn’t deny anything, so she kept quiet again.

“Also… you never turned me in.”

“I should have,” Vanessa said before she could stop herself.

“But you didn’t,” Brooke replied simply.

“I should’ve turned your ass in as soon as you illegally broke into my apartment, actually.” 

“But you didn’t,” she paused, “I guess that counts for something, no?”

“That doesn’t… It doesn’t…” Vanessa fumbled.

Brooke had never taken her eyes off of her, and what was at the beginning an open and earnest expression, had at some point turned into a smug grin Vanessa wanted to slap right off her face. 

She then defiantly raised an eyebrow, leaving Vanessa no choice but to grab her by the collar of her stupid designer shirt and push her against the bookshelf again.

Brooke bit her lip.

Never in her life had Vanessa felt such an urge to physically harm someone and, at the same time, get them naked in her bed.

Vanessa inched closer, slowly. Brooke’s eyes were getting darker — she tried to kiss Vanessa, but this time she was the quicker one: she strengthened her grip on her shirt and pushed her back again. 

Brooke licked her lips, her eyes looking down at Vanessa’s mouth; she looked like she was about to either cry or auto-combust if she didn’t get a kiss. She moaned and Vanessa felt her chest vibrate with it against her knuckles.

“Take your coat off,” Vanessa instructed.

Brooke complied.

“Your shoes.”

“Baby…”

“Shut up.”

Brooke gulped, but then did as she was told, sliding her shoes off from her feet.

Vanessa finally moved. She unbuttoned Brooke’s shirt with calculated slowness.

Brooke tried to move again, Vanessa held her still. She knew perfectly well that Brooke could have easily overpower her, but she wasn’t really trying to, which meant one thing — she was enjoying the game.

“You want me to fuck you?” she asked.

“Mh-mh,” Brooke whimpered.

“Huh?”

“Please.”

“Say it.”

“Yes, please. I want you to fuck me, baby.”

“Want?”

“Need. I _need_ you to fuck me, Vanessa.”

Vanessa slid her shirt off her shoulders, the material gathering at the waist where it was tucked into her tailored trousers. She watched goosebumps appear on Brooke’s skin as she touched her body, her hands still cold from being outside.

Brooke wasn’t being held still anymore, but she seemed to know better than to move, her shoulders still pressed against the bookshelf. She was holding her breath and she looked positively hungry for anything Vanessa was willing to give her. So she slid her right hand into her trousers, moving her panties to one side.

She looked up: Brooke had closed her eyes.

“Look at me.”

Her eyes shot open at the same exact time Vanessa touched her, a look that was almost pleading in them. She whimpered.

Vanessa moved slowly, rejoicing in Brooke’s neediness. This was new for them: it felt like everything had turned on its axis, their roles completely reversed, and Vanessa felt drunk with the feeling of Brooke being so close to her again, with the power that seeing her so pliant made her feel…

She built up a pace and kept at it until Brooke was panting and gripping the shelf for balance, her mouth agape. Their mouths were mere millimeters apart, but Vanessa didn’t feel like granting her a kiss just yet.

It was only when she was absolutely sure she was on the absolute edge, that Vanessa kissed her, Brooke moaning into the kiss while her body twitched.

And then Brooke was all over Vanessa, her hands working incredibly fast and efficiently to get her naked. As soon as the jumper and bra were off and the trouser’s button and zipper were undone, Brooke slid to her knees.

She was looking at her body with such reverence that Vanessa felt a lump form in her throat, her hands getting lost in Brooke’s blonde hair.

Brooke lowered her trousers down to her ankles and then looked up, her eyes stopping to look at her underwear before finding Vanessa’s eyes. She smiled.

“You’re wearing them. The panties.”

Vanessa smiled too.

“Yes.”

“Were you thinking of me when you put them on, baby?”

Brooke kissed her thigh.

“Yes.”

Vanessa felt her phone vibrate in her pocket.

_Just landed. See you soon!_

She smiled: she was so excited to see her mother. She felt like she had turned into a completely different person since the last time she had seen her.

“Scarlet?”

“Yes, love?”

“Can you tell Nina I did all the paperwork already? It’s on her desk. I’m heading out, my mom’s in town.”

“How exciting! Say hi to her from me.”

“Will do.”

She found her mother waiting for her in front of the tea room they had chosen. She was wearing a long black coat Vanessa was pretty sure she had bought exclusively for her trip to London, given that she probably wasn’t going to get much use out of it in Florida.

“_Mija_!” she exclaimed as soon as she spotted her walking down the pavement, “I’ll hug you once we’re inside, I can’t with this cold. It’s inhuman!”

Vanessa laughed. She had really missed her.

Once inside, Vanessa quickly ordered afternoon tea for the both of them, her mother starting to ask question before they were even seated.

“How’s work?”

“You know I can’t get too much into it. But it’s going great. How’s the family?”

“Good, good. Oh, speaking of, your _tita_ and your _abuelita_ gave me some stuff for you — it’s in my suitcase, I’m going to bring it over tomorrow. They still think you can’t get no decent food here in London, they don’t know about globalization yet, it seems like.”

“Of course they’d think that,” Vanessa chuckled, “I’ll call them later to thank them.”

“So? What about this Grace girl you’ve been telling me about?” her mother asked, visibly excited.

“She’s good. Very good— great, in fact. She’s very sweet.”

Her mom didn’t respond.

“A lovely person,” Vanessa insisted.

“I’m sure she is,” her mom said slowly.

“She’s great to me. Maybe we can all go to dinner together while you’re here?” she said, trying to convey as much conviction in her voice as she could, although having dinner with Grace and her mother was the last thing Vanessa ever wanted to do.

Her mom was looking at her, one eyebrow raised — she could almost see the wheels in her head turning, and Vanessa suddenly found the remains of her half-eaten egg sandwich really interesting. She started to prod it with her fork.

“Vanessa.”

She put the fork down.

“Why are you wasting this poor girl’s time?”

Anabell was never one to beat around the bush.

“And why are you wasting _your_ time, _mija_?” she continued, unrelenting.

“I…”

“Who’s the other one?”

Vanessa finally looked up.

“What other one—”

“The one you’re actually in love with.”

“Well, I… She…”

“You silly goose. Why are you doing this to yourself? You can’t shy away from it — haven’t you learned anything from all of those movies we’ve watched together? It’s always worth at least trying. You owe it to your heart! You’ve got to get this girl!”

“It’s not that easy, mom. Believe me.”

“Of course it’s not. But if you really want it, you’ll find a way — you know how that goes: _if you want it to work, it’ll work._ No?”

“I just don’t think that’s the case this time, mom.”

Anabell looked at her, a sad smile on her lips.

“Well. We’ll see,” she said.

Her mom’s words kept echoing in her mind — _if you want it to work it’ll work_. As much as Vanessa wanted it to be true, she knew it didn’t apply to the situation.

What would her mother even think of her if she ever found out that the one she was “actually in love with”, as she had phrased it, was an actual criminal?

At the same time, though, Vanessa couldn’t ignore the other end of deal — Grace. She knew her mother was right: she was wasting Grace’s time. She was lying to her and cheating on her too.

When she broke the news to her, she reacted in the most Grace-like way possible: she accepted her decision without a single protest. And Vanessa hated her for it — why was she always so poised and mild and compliant? Why couldn’t she just yell and smash plates like everyone else, goddamnit? It made Vanessa want to punch something. Or _someone_.

And she knew exactly who to call to blow off some steam.

When Brooke showed up, she was wearing a pair of ridiculously sexy leather — yes, leather — pants and a sheer blouse.

“Did you put that on just for me?” Vanessa asked, a smirk on her face.

“Maybe,” Brooke replied while walking past her and then looking back at her over her shoulder, mischief in her eyes.

“It looks good.”

“Oh, I know.”

“You bitch.”

Vanessa ran towards Brooke, her arms already open for her. She picked her up and then started to walk before stopping suddenly.

“What is it?” Vanessa asked.

“I just realized— I have no idea where your bedroom is.”

Vanessa chuckled.

“Yeah,” she said raising her eyebrows suggestively, “we never made it that far. It’s to the left.”

Brooke carried her to the bed, carefully putting her down on it. She then took a step back and just looked at her.

“You’re so pretty, baby.”

Vanessa huffed.

“Do you want to go look at the stars or do you want to get your hands on me?”

“I’ll make _you_ see stars.”

They both laughed at the same time, Brooke basically throwing herself on Vanessa and immediately starting to dispose of her clothing.

Vanessa was eagerly helping her by unbuttoning her own pants, but then she had a sudden change of heart.

“You know,” she started, Brooke halting her maneuvers to look up at her, “I kind of miss letting you do all the work.”

Brooke grinned at her.

“Lay back and enjoy the show then, baby.”

And so Vanessa did — she watched attentively as Brooke slid every single article of clothing from her body and then her own, the intimacy of them both being completely naked taking her mind back to Paris; she then watched as Brooke kissed her legs, gently spread them open, licked her own lips, and then got her mouth on her.

“Can I smoke? I’ll open the window, of course.”

Vanessa looked up from her phone, any excuse to postpone responding to Scarlet’s texts more than welcome.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” she said, genuinely surprised.

“Yeah, I did back in the day. Then I quit. Now I started again.”

“It’s not good for you, you know.”

Vanessa got up from the bed and walked towards the window where Brooke was now sitting. She sat right behind her, resting her head against her back.

“Out of everything that’s going on in my life, smoking seems the less dangerous to me — by far,” Brooke said as she lit up the cigarette.

“And that includes you, by the way,” she then added, turning around towards her.

Vanessa raised her eyebrows.

“As in— I’m dangerous?”

“You did almost get me killed,” Brooke laughed casually.

“What?”

The smile died on her lips, Brooke only then realizing the magnitude of what she had said.

“Oh… Right, you don’t know. Well… let’s just say that Konstantin wasn’t too happy when I told him I wanted to quit.”

“You want to quit?”

Again Brooke seemed to only realize the extent of her words only after she had spoken them. She hesitated.

“Yes. Well, I— I still don’t know what my future would look like exactly, but… yeah. That’s the idea.”

Vanessa felt something shift in her chest. She wasn’t completely sure of what it was, though.

“When did you decide this?” she whispered.

Brooke was silent for a while.

“When we were in Paris,” she finally admitted, flicking her cigarette.

“So…” Vanessa started slowly, her brain still trying to process all the information,“why did you leave, then?”

“Because I… Well, I thought it would’ve been best for you if I stayed as far away as possible.”

“But you said that… _I_ almost got you killed?”

“Yes,” replied Brooke frankly.

“Does that mean that your decision was based around… me?”

“It was.”  
“So you’re telling me that…” Vanessa struggled, knowing that she had to choose her words very carefully, “You wanted to turn your life around for me but then you… didn’t want me… in it? You do realize that it doesn’t make any kind of sense, yeah?”

Brooke sighed.

“I— You don’t understand.”

“Then help me understand!” argued Vanessa, resting a hand on Brooke’s thigh.

“This life… There’s no way out of it, Vanessa. You either kill or get killed, that’s the way it is. It’s not like I can just stop and start… I don’t know… knitting for a living. You know?”

“Right. You’d end up in prison.”

Brooke snorted. 

“That’s not even it. Prison would probably the safest place for me right now.”

“So? What do you want to do?”

“I just… You made me realize that there are things that I… care about, you know? I used to think that it was all for nothing, this life. I used to not care whether I lived or died, or whatever. But you…” she paused, her eyes getting shiny with tears, “It scared me how much I cared about you— How much I loved you, really.” 

She looked up. Vanessa looked right back at her, her own eyes getting wet.

“I was terrified because for the first time there was something that made me want to turn my life around, completely — I need you to understand, Vanessa: it had never happened to me before.”

“I— I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” Brooke replied, her voice veiled with sadness, “It’s… I know there’s no chance. Okay? I know there’s no future, I’m not a complete fool.”

“The circumstances are not important,” Vanessa whispered.

“Circumstances?”

Brooke looked at her as if she had just uttered the single most absurd thing she had ever heard in her life. But Vanessa didn’t falter.

“Is all it is. Just circumstances.”

Brooke was stunned.

“Do you really believe that?”

“Yes,” she replied firmly.

Brooke snuffed her cigarette out, her eyebrows furrowed as she observed Vanessa’s hand on her thigh.

“Run away with me, then.”

“What?”

“I’ve got enough money to last us for a lifetime. Let’s find… I don’t know… an island in the Pacific or something like that. It’ll be just like Paris — just the two of us, nothing from the outside world bothering us. We’ll live like—”

“Brooke.”

She stopped talking right away, her face falling in milliseconds. She inhaled and opened her mouth as though she was about to start speaking again, but she didn’t.

When she finally spoke, her voice sounded miserable.

“Right. Right, I hadn’t… I’m sorry I was getting ahead of myself. I just…”

“No, Brooke,” Vanessa chuckled softly as she cupped her face, “I want to.”

“I’m going to head out, then. I’ll see you soon, yeah?”

“Yes,” Vanessa nodded, “I love you.”

Her mother opened her arms and Vanessa flung herself into them immediately. She was going to _really_ miss her this time.

“I love you too,” her mom said into the hug.

“Bye, mom.”

“Oh, I almost forgot—” Anabell stopped the door from closing and leaned back to look at Vanessa, “You had quite a bit of mail downstairs, so I brought it up for you. I put it on the coffee table.”

“Thank you mom.”

She smiled.

“Bye.”

Bills to pay, bills to pay, Silky’s postcard from Paris, bills to—

Vanessa stopped in her tracks — her conversation with Silky felt so distant it seemed to belong to a past life; she could remember it remotely, but everything she had felt then seemed foreign to her now that the word “Paris” didn’t feel like a stab wound every time she heard it.

She turned the postcard around in her hands, a tiny smile forming on her lips. She walked over to the fridge to stick it to the door with a magnet, but a sudden noise made her jump.

She turned around to see her bag on the floor, its content scattered all over. She must have accidentally placed it on the wobbly stool again.

She was crouched down, gathering all of her things when she saw it: the pen drive — yet another thing that seemed so distant from where she was now. She knew exactly what was inside of it, and her stomach started to churn.

Her anxiety started to spike up. She had to sit down on her sofa.

In front of her, on the coffee table, two objects were displayed — a postcard, and a pen drive. To a stranger, they would have looked like two perfectly ordinary objects to find in a living room, but, to Vanessa, they were a lot more than that: they symbolized the very two pillars around which her entire life rotated.

She felt nauseous. Her head started to spin as dozens of different voices echoing in her ears at the same time:

_there was someone. A woman_

_i want to._

_how much I loved you_

_are you scared?_

_sorry, baby_

_there’s no way out_

_there is no pussy on this entire godforsaken planet that is bomb enough for you to completely turn your back on everything you’ve ever stood for_

_circumstances._

_there’s no chance_

_if you want it to work it’ll work_

_must be love on the brain_

_you owe it to your heart_

_prison would probably the safest place for me right now._

Vanessa sat in front of her coffee table for what felt like days, staring at her two options. When she finally looked up, the clock informed her that it was way past midnight.

She wiped her eyes.

She tried to steady her breath. 

She ignored her heart breaking.

She picked up the pen drive. 

**(Two years later)**

“I’m going to check the laundry room, you check the bathroom,” Scarlet whispered. 

Vanessa nodded. She knew he couldn’t have gone far — they had him in the bag.

She rounded the corner and kicked the door open, her hand gripping the gun in her pocket. She had half expected him not to be there, but she was still disappointed when she was welcomed by an empty room.

She sighed. She knew needed to go find Scarlett again, but she stalled for a second, looking at her reflection in the mirror.

The door opened.

Vanessa jumped, her hand going straight for the gun again.

A woman was standing at the door. She was blonde. She was tall. She had a big scar splitting her eyebrow in half.

She spoke.

“I still love it when you wear your hair down,” she said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will we ever hear again from prison fugitive Brooke with a new sexy scar on her face? Who knows.
> 
> For know this is _la fin_. Thank you so much for reading.
> 
> Some things might have sounded familiar to you if you’ve been part of the Branjie clown wagon for a while, and I want you to know — it was a 110% on purpose.
> 
> I’m fine with being lynched — you can do so in the comments below or on tumblr, @**silentccries** or @**broccolihytes**.


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